¹ Recent works on American foreign relations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have sparked a stimulating controversy over the nature of American expansionism. Unfortunately, the participants have tended to emphasize the American side of the story and to neglect the “other side,” whether Cuban, Spanish, Filipino or Chinese. In the last case they have remained entranced with the appearance of American omnipotence and Chinese frailty. As a result, the picture of Sino-American relations is still one-sided. Heavy reliance on American sources has caused historians to perpetuate the turn of the century American prejudices written into those sources, to downplay some of the less attractive attitudes that American policy makers have displayed in dealing with the lesser breeds, and to all but ignore Chinese policy and politics. I have tried to contribute to the debate by looking in this article at American policy from the foreign perspective during the Boxer indemnity remission episode. For a more ambitious effort, see my unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, “Frontier Defense and the Open Door: Manchuria in Chinese-American Relations, 1895–1911” (Yale University, 1971)Google Scholar .

The general statements in the debate over American expansionism are LaFeber, Walter, The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860–1898 (Cornell University Press, 1963)Google Scholar; Morgan, H. Wayne, America's Road to Empire: The War with Spain and Overseas Expansion (New York, 1965)Google Scholar ; and May, Ernest R., American Imperialism: A Speculative Essay (New York, 1968)Google Scholar . Works dealing specifically with China policy are Young, Marilyn B., Rhetoric of Empire: America's China Policy, 1895–1901 (Harvard University Press, 1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McCormick, Thomas J., China Market: America's Quest for Informal Empire, 1893–1901 (Chicago, 1967)Google Scholar; Varg, Paul A., The Maying of a Myth: The United States and China, 1897–1912 (Michigan State University Press, 1968)Google Scholar ; and a review article on Varg by McCormick, , “American Expansion in China,” American Historical Review, LXXV (June 1970), 1393–1396CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² The indemnity remission referred to in this article is the first one, accomplished by executive order on December 28, 1908. The returned funds, representing indemnity in excess of the settled and disputed claims of American citizens, business firms and the federal government arising from the Boxer affair, amounted to nearly $11,000,000, slightly more than two-fifths of China's total Boxer obligation to the United States. The Chinese government used this money to educate Chinese in the United States and to establish in Peking a preparatory school, Tsing Hua University. Malone, Carroll B., “The First Remission of the Boxer Indemnity,” American Historical Review, XXXII (October 1926), 64–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar , has long been the standard secondary account.

After the settlement of disputed claims the United States Government made a second remission in May 1924. Because of the regional political division in China at that time, the funds were entrusted not to the Chinese government as was done in the first remission but instead to the China Foundation, a joint Chinese-American committee to promote education and culture.

³ Letters from China (Chicago, 1910), pp. 372–373Google Scholar.

⁴ “The Return of the Indemnity Funds to China,” in his China's New Nationalism and Other Essays (Shanghai, 1925), p. 206Google Scholar . For other similar comments, see Bashford, Bishop James W., China: An Interpretation (New York, 1916), p. 429Google Scholar; Abbott, Lawrence F., Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt (New York, 1919), p. 146Google Scholar; Williams, Edward Thomas, China Yesterday and Today (New York, 1932), p. 252Google Scholar; Willoughby, Westel W., Foreign Rights and Interests in China (Baltimore, 1927), II, 1014Google Scholar ; and Millard, Thomas F., America and the Far Eastern Question (New York, 1909), p. 319Google Scholar . Isaacs, Harold, Scratches on Our Mind (New York, 1958), pp. 144–145Google Scholar , is one of the few accounts in English to deal critically with the remission.

⁵ Carroll B. Malone, “The First Remission of the Boxer Indemnity,” p. 68.

⁶ Bemis, Samuel Flagg, A Diplomatic History of the United States (4th ed.; New York, 1955), p. 488Google Scholar; Bailey, Thomas A., A Diplomatic History of the American People (6th ed.; New York, 1958), p. 482Google Scholar ; and Taylor, George E. and Michels, Franz, The Far East in the Modern World (London, 1956), p. 621Google Scholar.

⁷ Iriye, Akira, Across the Far Pacific: An Inner History of American-East Asian Relations (New York, 1967), p. 124Google Scholar.

⁸ T'ao Chü-yin, “Wen-hua ch'in-lüeh ti tung-chi chi ch'i ying-hsiang,” [Motivation behind cultural invasion and its influence] in his collection of essays, Mei-kuo ch'in-Hua shih-liao [Historical materials on American aggression against China] (Shanghai, 1951), p. 45. See also Ta-nien, Liu, Mei-kuo ch'in-Hua chien-shih [A brief history of American aggression against China] (Peking, 1949), p. 29Google Scholar .

Many mainland historians who might be expected to deal with the remission question have stayed away and saved their heavy shot for more attractive “imperialist” targets in the late Ch'ing. Many of these historians, writing hurriedly in the heat of the Korean War, were limited because they drew heavily on sources in English, which suggested no clear line of attack on the remission question. Wang Shu-huai of the Institute of Modern History at the Academia Sinica on Taiwan has now in progress a general history of the Boxer indemnity.

⁹ Hay, telegraphic instructions to E. H. Conger, January 29, 1901 (enclosed in Conger to Hay, February 5, 1901), Minister to China: Despatches, U. S. National Archives microfilm.

¹⁰ Conger to Hay, February 11, 1901, Minister to China: Despatches.

¹¹ Rockhill to Hay, February 4, 1901, Hay Papers, Library of Congress. The London Times correspondent in Peking recorded in his diary contemporary criticism of the over-large American claim. Pearl, Cyril, Morrison of Peking (Sydney, 1967), p. 133Google Scholar.

¹² Hay's intentions must be surmised, for lack of any clear evidence elsewhere, from his instructions to his negotiators in Peking. In addition to his telegram to Conger of January 29, 1901, noted above, see in Diplomatic Instructions: China, U. S. National Archives microfilm, Hay's telegrams to Conger, December 29, 1900, and to W. W. Rockhill, April 29, May 10 and 28, and August 5, 1901.

¹³ Hay to Rockhill, May 10, 1901, Diplomatic Instructions: China.

¹⁴ T'ung-hsin, Hsü, Chang Wen-hsiang-kung nien-p'u [A chronological biography of Chang Chih-tung] (Taipei reprint, 1969), p. 147Google Scholar ; and Morse, H. B., International Relations of the Chinese Empire (New York, 1910–1918), IIIGoogle Scholar , appendix A. The financial situation was much the same in 1906. See the report by E. T. Williams, enclosed in Rockhill to the Secretary of State, Septembcr 26, 1906, State Department Numerical File 2112/-1, U. S. National Archives. (This collection is hereafter abbreviated “NF.”)

¹⁵ The indemnity protocol set China's debt to the United States, including the $25,000,000 principal and the interest on it through the final installment of 1939, at about $46,000,000. The protocol is reproduced in MacMurray, John V. A., Treaties and Agreements with and concerning China, 1894–1919, Vol. I: Manchu Period (1894–1911) (New York, 1921), p. 311Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Hay to Rockhill, telegram, August 26, 1901, Diplomatic Instructions: China; and Rockhill to Theodore Roosevelt, July 12, 1905, Rockhill Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University. President Roosevelt made clear in an interview with the Chinese Minister that Secretary of State Elihu Root shared John Hay's wish that the excess indemnity be returned. Chinese Minister to the United States Liang Ch'eng to the Wai-wu Pu, received November 1, 1905, File on the indemnity remitted by the United States (Mei-kuo mieh-shou p'ei-k'uan), records of the Wai-wu Pu in the Diplomatic Archives of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. (This file is hereafter referred to as “WWP Indemnity File.”) Root's recollections on the decision to return the indemnity, recorded in the biography by Jessup, Philip C., are not reliable. Elihu Root (New York, 1938), I, 385–387Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Liang Ch'eng to the Wai-wu Pu, received May 13, 1905, WWP Indemnity File.

¹⁸ Roosevelt to Rockhill, August 22, 1905, in Morison, Elting E. et al. (eds.), The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt (Harvard University Press, 1951–1954), IV, 1310Google Scholar . The administration's disapproval is also reflected in another letter by the President to Rockhill, August 29, 1905, in Morison et al., IV, 1326–1327, as well as in Martin, W. A. P., The Awakening of China (New York, 1907), p. 251Google Scholar ; in Cyril Pearl, p. 156; and in Hay to Jeremiah Jenks, February 13, 1905, Hay Papers.

¹⁹ Roosevelt to Rockhill, August 22, 1905, in Morison et al., IV. 1310.

²⁰ Liang Ch'eng to the Wai-wu Pu, received November 1, 1905, WWP Indemnity File.

²¹ Ibid., as well as W. A. P. Martin, p. 252.

²² Liang Ch'eng to the Wai-wu Pu, received October 3, 1906, WWP Indemnity File.

²³ Roosevelt to Root, September 26, 1907, in Morison et al., V, 809. On the State Department's hostility toward Wu, see the documents in NF 5971/9–14, 18.

²⁴ Liang Ch'eng to the Wai-wu Pu, received July 16, 1907, Supplementary indemnity file (p'ei-k'uan an pu-tsu), records of the Wai-wu Pu. (This file is hereafter abbreviated “Supplementary WWP Indemnity File.”)

²⁵ Root to David S. Thompson, March 2, 1907, NF 2413/21.

²⁶ Charles Denby, Jr., to Root, memo, March 28, 1907, NF 2413/51.

²⁷ Liang Ch'eng to the Wai-wu Pu, received July 16, 1907, Supplementary WWP Indemnity File.

²⁸ Liang Ch'eng to the Wai-wu Pu, received July 16, 1907, WWP Indemnity File, and July 25, 1907, Supplementary WWP Indemnity File.

²⁹ Liang Ch'eng to the Wai-wu Pu, received August 3, 1907, Supplementary WWP Indemnity File.

³⁰ Root to the Secretaries of War and the Navy, May 11, 1907, NF 2413/44a, 44b. The revised claims appear in NF 2413/56–57. The original claims are itemized in a memo of February 16, 1907, NF 2413/15.

³¹ Root to Liang Ch'eng, NF 2413/58a.

³² Wu to the Wai-wu Pu, received April 17, 1908, WWP Indemnity File.

³³ U. S., Congressional Record, 60th Cong., 1st Sess., 1908, XLII, Part 1, 563, 673, 720–722.

³⁴ Details of the company's claim and the sub-committee's treatment of it emerge from the documents in NF 2413/71, 91, 112, 125.

³⁵ Root to Denby, February 20 and 28, 1908, and Denby to Root, February 28, 1908, NF 2413/122, 124.

³⁶ Congressional Record, XLII, Part 1, 809, and Part 3, 2627.

³⁷ Congressional Record, XLII, Part 7, 6844.

³⁸ Congressional Record, XLII, Part 7, 6815, 6871, 6908, 6954. The House debate is on pp. 6841–6845. The resolution appears in John V. A. MacMurray, I, 311–312.

³⁹ Liang Ch'eng to the Wai-wu Pu, received May 13, 1905, WWP Indemnity File. The quotes in this and the following paragraph come from this despatch.

⁴⁰ Liang reiterated in a despatch later in the year this view that the funds were to be used as China itself decided. Liang Ch'eng to the Wai-wu Pu, received November 1, 1905, WWP Indemnity File.

⁴¹ Yüan had participated in negotiations concerning Russian occupation of the region. With the outbreak of war between Japan and Russia, he was made responsible for military preparedness and helped shape his country's policy of neutrality.

⁴² Yüan to the Wai-wu Pu, received May 23, 1905, WWP Indemnity File.

⁴³ The Wai-wu Pu to Yüan and to Liang Ch'eng, June 1, 1905, WWP Indemnity File.

⁴⁴ Rockhill to Roosevelt, July 12, 1905, Rockhill Papers, and to Root, August 6, 1907, NF 2413/79.

In addition to Rockhill's and Yüan's proposals, one other was advanced. Professor Jeremiah Jenks of Cornell University urged that the excess indemnity be devoted to currency reform in China. His proposal, a revival of an earlier recommendation to the Chinese government, failed to win support either in the United States or in China. Chang Chih-tung's opposition had already proven more than enough to kill the idea. Rockhill too disparaged the plan. Jenks to John Hay, February 10, 1905, Hay Papers.

⁴⁵ Huntington Wilson, memo, November 22, 1907, NF 2413/79.

⁴⁶ Root to Rockhill, May 27, 1908, NF 2413/138a.

⁴⁷ Lawrence F. Abbott, pp. 143–145, and Smith, Arthur H., China and America Today: A Study of Conditions and Relations (New York, 1907), p. 220Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ Edmund J. James (President, University of Illinois), “Memorandum concerning the sending of an Educational Commission to China,” quoted in extenso in Arthur H. Smith, pp. 213–218.

⁴⁹ Roosevelt's view of China appears in his letters to George Ferdinand Becker, July 8, 1901, to John Hay, September 2, 1904, and to W. W. Rockhill, August 22, 1905. These letters are reproduced in Morison et al., III, 112; IV, 917; and IV, 1310, respectively. Roosevelt's letter to Smith of April 3, 1906, is in Morison et al., V, 206. The address is in Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1907 (Washington, D. C., 1910), p. lxviiGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁰ A convenient factual summary of the earlier indemnity resulting from damage done in 1856 around Canton and its remission is Tong, Hoh Yam, “The Boxer Indemnity Remissions and Education in China” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1933), pp. 44–50Google Scholar . On the Yung Wing mission see LaFargue, Thomas, China's First Hundred (State College of Washington, 1942)Google Scholar , and Wang, Y. C., Chinese Intellectuals and the West 1872–1942 (University of North Carolina Press, 1966), pp. 42–45Google Scholar , 74–75, 84–85.

⁵¹ Hsü Shih-ch'ang, T'ui-keng-t'ang cheng-shu [Collected official papers of Hsü Shih-ch'ang] (Taipei reprint, 1968), I, 363–376.

⁵² This is the line of reasoning pursued in a memorial of June 1907 contained in Hsü Shih ch'ang, I, 480–487, which I believe to have been written by T'ang.

⁵³ Hsü's memorial is in his collected papers, I, 471–475. The edict of approval is summarized in Te-tsung shih-lu [Veritable records for the reign of the Kuang-hsü Emperor] (Taipei reprint, 1964), 593.10–11. Hsü had begun to consider the development bank idea shortly after his return to Peking from his inspection tour of Manchuria. His memo on it is in his collected works, III, 1755–1776.

⁵⁴ Hsü Shih-ch'ang, I, 550–557, for the memorial of October 21, 1907; and Willard Straight to the Assistant Secretary of State, November 9, 1907, NF 2321/16.

⁵⁵ Hsü Shih-ch'ang, II, 661–663, for the memorial of January 3, 1908.

⁵⁶ Straight to Henry Fletcher, March 11 and 12, 1908, found in Fletcher Papers, Library of Congress, and NF 2413/129, respectively.

⁵⁷ Rockhill to Root, April 28, 1908, NF 2112/27.

⁵⁸ Straight, memo, November 23, 1907, NF 2413/93. See also the memo which he presented to Taft during the interview and his progress report to Taft, both dated December 2, 1907, NF 2413/98–99.

⁵⁹ Straight to the Assistant Secretary of State, December 9, 1908, NF 2413/91. See also Straight to Fletcher, March 12, 1908, NF 2413/129.

⁶⁰ Wilbur J. Carr to Straight, February 10, 1908, NF 2413/92–94.

⁶¹ Rockhill to Root, April 28, 1908, NF 2112/27.

⁶² The quote is from Straight to Harriman, October 7, 1907. See also Straight to Harriman, February 16, 1908. Both are in Straight Papers, John M. Olin Library, Cornell University. Straight to Fletcher, March 17, 1908, Fletcher Papers, describes T'ang's views on the role Harriman might play.

⁶³ Alex Millar (Harriman's secretary) to Straight, June 12, 1908, Straight Papers. See also Harriman to Straight, June 5, 1908, Straight Papers.

⁶⁴ Wai-wu Pu, memorial, misfiled under July 23, 1908, WWP Indemnity File. The Imperial edict of July 18, 1908, appears in Wang Yen-wei and Wang Liang (compilers), Ch'ing-chi wai-chiao shih-liao: Kuang-hsü ch'ao [Historical materials on late Ch'ing diplomacy: the Kuang-hsü reign] (Peking, 1935), 215Google Scholar .14. See also Rockhill to Root, July 30, 1908, NF 2413/157.

⁶⁵ Rockhill to Root, April 28, 1908, NF 2112/27.

⁶⁶ Ibid., and Rockhill to Roosevelt, July 12, 1905, Rockhill Papers, contain references to these informal assurances.

⁶⁷ Rockhill thus summarized his comments to T'ang in his despatch to Root of April 28, 1908, NF 2112/27.

⁶⁸ Root to Rockhill, May 27, 1908, NF 2413/138a.

⁶⁹ The account of Rockhill's negotiations are drawn primarily from his detailed report to Root, July 16, 1908, and his letter to Phillips, August 1, 1908, NF 2413/146 and 148 respectively. Also see Rockhill to Root, telegram, July 15, 1908, NF 2413/140, and the formal notes exchanged by Rockhill and the Wai-wu Pu, WWP Indemnity File.

⁷⁰ Rockhill to Phillips, August 1, 1908, NF 2413/148.

⁷¹ Phillips to Alvey A. Adee, memo, September 9, 1908, NF 2413/148.

⁷² Rockhill to Root, July 30, 1908, NF 2413/157.

⁷³ Phillips to Rockhill, September 19, 1908, Rockhill Papers.

⁷⁴ Huntington Wilson to Root, memo, December 5, 1908, and undated Straight memo, both in NF 2413/220. The record of T'ang's unproductive interview with Root on December 9, 1908, is in NF 2413/218.

For greater detail on the ambitious Chinese plans for Manchuria, including the unsuccessful effort to enlist American support in 1907 and 1908, see my dissertation, “Frontier Defense and the Open Door,” pp. 147–218.

⁷⁵ Phillips to Rockhill, September 19, 1908, Rockhill Papers. Two recent works on Roosevelt's Far Eastern policy make quite clear that he was concerned that China questions not trouble his relations with Japan. See Neu, Charles E., An Uncertain Friendship: Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 1906–1909 (Harvard University Press, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and Esthus, Raymond A., Theodore Roosevelt and Japan (University of Washington Press, 1966)Google Scholar.

⁷⁶ Straight (paraphrasing T'ang) to Fletcher, March 17, 1908, Fletcher Papers.

⁷⁷ Wai-wu Pu to the Board of Education, December 14, 1907, and to the Board of Revenue, December 3, 1907, both in Supplementary WWP Indemnity File; Board of Education to the Wai-wu Pu, September 13, 1908, WWP Indemnity File; and Wai-wu Pu and Board of Education, joint memorial, June 20, 1909, reproduced in Hsin-ch'eng, Shu, Chin-tai Chung-kuo liu-hsüeh shih [A modern history of Chinese students abroad] (Shanghai, 1927), pp. 75–78Google Scholar . The relevant State Department documents are in NF 2413/243, 256, 274, and in NF 5315/349.

⁷⁸ Parsons, William B., An American Engineer in China (New York, 1900), pp. 311–312Google Scholar.

⁷⁹ Carpenter, Frank G. quoted in “The Awakening of China,” Daily Consular and Trade Reports, no. 3636 (Nov. 15, 1909), pp. 8–9Google Scholar.

⁸⁰ Phillips to E. C. Baker, memo, September 3, 1909, NF 2413/268–370.

⁸¹ Huntington Wilson to Peking legation, telegram, June 19, 1909, NF 5315/259.

⁸² Chung-yang ta-t'ung jih-pao [Central daily news], edition in December 1908, translated in NF 16533/59.